Review

"Spankmaster", discussed in the album's self-titled track is kind of a superhero with an ability to make any female in his presence remove their clothes at the mere sight of him. Keith puts his interests - porno, drugs, trucks, science fiction and horror movies to good use. Spiritually, Spankmaster is a semi-sequel to Keith's "pornocore" classic Sex Style. There are some good pornocore-themed tracks; on "Girls Would U Fuck Tonight" and "Spankmaster (Take Off Your Clothes), Keith is essentially ordering women to take off their clothes and have sex with him. "Girls Would U Fuck Tonight" is as explicitly detailed as any from Sex Style, and on par lyrically with the graphic visual content of a porno movie.

When he is not imagining pornographic sexcapades, he imagines unlikely tours with big names like Michael Jackson, Madonna and even Limp Bizkit, putting a trademark joke to good use - it's funny here, even though we've already heard it on Dr. Octagonecologyst and Sex Style.

Spankmaster is less of an attempt from Keith to go mainstream, but rather, Keith's digestion of mainstream rap and regurgitation as something a little more unusual. For example, Keith keeps announcing that he's in the house for 2003, even though this album was recorded and released in 2001. Keith also directly calls out and critiques fake "hardcore" rappers, whom he is no less annoyed by here than he was on his Dr. Dooom debut. Problematically, Keith is found complaining about how everyone in the industry ripped him off. Here and there, it's fine, but it can get to be a bit much.

Thankfully, though this is outweighed by the album's good points, which include its sound, which incorporates trademark live instrumentation and bass-oriented synth. The album's funk influences are no more clear than in Keith's imitation of Bootsy Collins' voice on "Blackula".

This is a good addition to Keith's seemingly endless discography, and a nice meeting of Keith's own East Coast style and Overcore's Midwest sound.